Can’t Win If You Don’t Play

by thoughtsonthedead

Because It’s The Grateful Dead Way, Vol. 281,722:

Read the above two paragraphs, please. You can go to Dead & Company’s site and get your raffle ticket here, but when you’re done, please read the above two paragraphs. While you were filling out your entry, did you notice that the above two paragraphs were the only explanation of the whole situation?

So, I ask: what exactly is happening? What I infer is happening is that AmEx and the Dead Or What’s Left Of ‘Em are putting on a show in MSG at which the only way to get tickets is to win them through the contest.

Unfortunately, the publicity person who wrote the above two paragraphs wrote them in Dothraki, then translated them into English using the “close enough” button on Google Translate.

But there’s this: the Wichita Eagle says that “No tickets for the show will go on sale” but also says that “5,000 fans will have a chance to win two tickets each” which is either bad math or John Mayer has a 7,000-person strong guest list. (By the way: the Wichita Eagle also says that Brett Ratner is now involved. This is turning into a good old-fashioned douche-off.)

Also: it’s now 38 minutes past the hour and not a word from Dead & Whatever’s Instagram or Twitter, nor any of the individual members’ accounts. Nothing’s trending; there is no hashtag; forget a custom emoji. For all intents and purposes, I broke this story.

This is the bushest bush league that ever leagued a bush. This league is so bush it was Miss July ’78.

…

It’s now 12:45 and TotD is still the owner of this story which is, to use a business term, so fucking predictable and hilarious and maybe even just a little bit exactly perfect but mostly just bush league.

“Brett Ratner” is probably a portmanteau. There is a Bruce Ratner, real estate developer, former majority owner (and still minority owner) of the New Jersey Nets, and he is the primary owner of the Barclays Arena in Brooklyn. That is why he bought the Nets, to facilitate the development, and he subsequently sold the Nets to Russian bazillonaire Mikhail Prokhorov.

However, Ratner’s principal henchman is a guy named Brett Yormark. He is ex-NASCAR, before he became President of the Nets when they were still in Secaucus. Yormark was notorious for leaking every conversation that the Nets GM (Rod Thorn) had about trades, thus assuring no trade could ever be completed and dooming the Nets (as is their fate, admittedly, Jason Kidd aside).

However, why would Ratner and Yormark be involved in a venture with Barclay’s biggest rival? If Yormark is involved, however, expect the leaks to come fast. My own expectation is that the unassigned tickets will be lotteried out to Knicks season ticket holders. The jokes will write themselves.